The Datto, Inc. office in Rochester, New York. (Credit: The New York Times)

Shortly after taking over management of Clinton’s private email server, Platte River Networks (PRN) buys a device called the Datto SIRIS S2000 from another company called Datto, Inc. that frequently makes copies of all the server’s contents. They use this device on a copy of Clinton’s server, which has been moved to a data storage facility in New Jersey. Then, apparently without PRN asking or paying for it, or even being aware of it, Datto stores those copies of the server’s contents on a “cloud” storage system elsewhere. (McClatchy Newspapers, 10/6/2015)

A September 2016 FBI report will explain, “At the Clintons’ request, PRN only intended that the backup device store local copies of the backups. However, in August 2015, Datto informed PRN that, due to a technical oversight, [Clinton’s] server was also backing up the server to Datto’s secure cloud storage. After this notification, PRN instructed Datto to discontinue the secure cloud backups.”

In 2015, an unnamed source familiar with Datto’s account will say that PRN was billed for “private cloud” storage, and since PRN didn’t have a cloud storage node of its own, the data bounced to Datto’s cloud. This source says that even though nobody seemed to realize it, Datto was “managing the off-site storage throughout.”

When asked if the FBI might recover Clinton’s deleted emails from Datto’s storage, the source will say, “People don’t use Datto’s service for getting rid of data.” Apparently, the FBI will ask for and get the contents of Datto’s storage in September 2015. (McClatchy Newspapers, 10/6/2015)

Senator Ron Johnson (R), who will write a letter to Datto in late 2015 seeking more information, will say that “questions still remain as to whether Datto actually transferred the data from its off-site data center to the on-site server, what data was backed up, and whether Datto wiped the data after it was transferred.” It is also unknown if Datto employees have security clearances allowing them to view classified information. (CNN, 10/8/2015)

A Datto official will later say that investigators may be able to recover Clinton’s deleted emails if the data was on the server at the time Datto’s service was first used in 2013. (The Washington Post, 10/7/2015)

The FBI will later confirm that Datto back-ups to the cloud will occur, but it isn’t clear if the FBI recovered any emails from this that they didn’t find through other means. It also isn’t clear if the June 29, 2013 back-up that the FBI finds useful is from the Datto SIRIS S2000, the cloud, or both. (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/2/2016)